Saturday, June 2, 2012

Resilient Dragons

I've decided to be true to my word and continue to discussing mods that focus much more on gameplay rather than strictly visual changes. What this means for the blog is longer posts with much more detail in the descriptions. I don't think I'm going to hide the full posts on the main page initially, but I might have to go back and edit these if I can't fit a bunch of posts on one page. We'll see what happens.

When I think about Skyrim, one thing always pops into my head: dragons. Not only were they a huge marketing point of the game before its initial release, they also play a gigantic role in the main quest. Those of you that already have played through Skyrim obviously are aware of this fact. However, one common complaint about the dragons is that they never seem to be very scary after the initial excitement wears off. There have been dozens of instances in Skyrim where I've casually walked by civilians completely mutilating the poor beast as if it were a limping mudcrab. Why should Skyrim need a hero like the Dragonborn to stop something so weak if a couple guards and a housewife and take on the thing and live to tell the tale?

Resilient Dragons changes all of that, but not in the way you might expect. Most mods that aim to add difficulty to the game will make dragons deal more damage and destroy anything that gets in their way, including your character. The author of Resilient Dragons elected to focus more on making sure you as the Dragonborn are the most adept at killing the dragons, and other characters simply don't have what it takes to put the thing down. This goal is achieved by increasing the health of dragons and adding resistances against damage dealt by NPCs. Commoners will also know to run now due to an "aura" that scares anyone that doesn't know how to handle themselves in combat. This mainly means anyone but guards and potential followers. It's going to take a lot longer to kill a dragon now, and having the rest of the world on your side isn't going to be very effective.

The video that I've made for this mod is exciting for me because it's my first real attempt at recording my audio while filming at the same time. This feat was especially difficult while trying to fight off a dragon, let alone a resilient one. As you will see, I wasn't entirely successful, either.

There's a very noticeable difference in the combat after adding this mod, and I have a feeling it's going to take some getting used to. My character in particular was having a difficult time due to my lack of ranged combat, which now has become something of a necessity. I wouldn't recommend getting a mod like this if you aren't prepared to adjust your play style accordingly. For those that are, you can find Resilient Dragons on both the Nexus and Steam Workshop.

For those of you that didn't enjoy my dialogue or didn't think anything I said was necessary, know that I will only be adding my voice for when I consider it useful for displaying the mod in question. Please speak up if you feel this way, though; I'd like to know what kinds of mods should include a voiced video and which shouldn't. At this time, I plan on only adding my voice to gameplay mods that aren't strictly visual. I'd love to know what you think, so be sure to comment on here, YouTube, or my Tumblr. Until next time.